We’re a global innovation firm,
imagining tomorrow’s
products, services and businesses
– and creating them today.
imagining tomorrow’s
products, services and businesses
– and creating them today.
Helping Blue Box Partners collaborate with customers to co-design Amazon certified Frustration-Free Packaging solutions.
Blue Box Partners (BBP) is a consortium of packaging companies based in Europe. They produce tailor-made corrugated cardboard packaging solutions for some of the biggest names in the food and beverage industry. Their united goal is to achieve “sustainable expansion of the packaging market” and develop long-term, inspiring collaborations with customers and employees.
BBP saw an opportunity to achieve both of these goals when Amazon – a platform many of its customers use – installed new logistics and supply chain guidelines. The trend began gaining traction and subtly impacting all sellers on the site, including BBP’s clients.
To encourage adoption, Amazon charges brands that don’t achieve FFP certification € 1.7 extra per selling unit. BBP realized that its clients would be impacted significantly by these guidelines, and saw an opportunity to save them money (by helping clients avoid Amazon’s non-compliance chargebacks) while simultaneously strengthening their corporate relationships. How? By investigating the impact of this initiative with their clients (to determine whether these problems were worth tackling) and collaborating to develop appealing, customer-friendly FFP-certified packaging suited to each of their unique needs.
To do so, BBP decided to run a B2B customer co-creation program alongside Board of Innovation. They asked us to facilitate the collaborations and deliver the methodologies and tools they’d need to adopt a customer-centric mindset. This was especially important because, with FFP/SIOC cutting out a large part of the Amazon fulfilment process, the product designers from BBP needed to adopt an entirely new approach by developing solutions that weren’t just functional, but appealing to customers. In other words, their packaging would not only need to reach consumers in one piece, it would also need to delight recipients.
To help them achieve these goals, we set up a B2B co-creation program between BBP and 5 of their customers. Over 6 months, we helped conduct interviews and together with theBBP Chief Innovation Officer, Daphné Deledicq, enabled teams to truly understand the challenge each client faced in adopting FFP. Through 1-on-1 interviews, we developed unique customer profiles and identified the most important products to tackle.
Which is where the B2B co-creation bootcamp came in. Over 3 days, teams from the different packaging companies within BBP (VPK, Hinojosa, Klingele and Cart-One) came together to design and prototype a new packaging solution for a designated customer.
We presented them with the methodologies, input, tools, and inspiration they’d need to ideate solutions and helped them select options to scale. They then pitched their concepts to the designated client for validation and feedback. The results were great. Most of the clients present confirmed that the suggested FFP/SIOC packaging solutions would indeed deliver value for them. In addition, they made suggestions so that the products could be developed further.
The final day of the B2B customer co-creation bootcamp saw the 6 teams pitch their solutions before a jury consisting of their relevant client, as well as senior leaders at BBP.
